October, 2018Archive

No big bikes. No scripts. No directors, no make-up artists. No boxes to check. And that; is a kind of freedom. One minute we were tourists and the next minute we were a tourist attraction. The cameraman was at some point the subject.

Every once in a while, it’s good to throw away the rulebook and make a new game. Whether it’s the expectations and ‘standards’ of the biker image, or the video production handbook; the rules we make become our limitations.
We rode away from the ‘serious biker’ character. Swapped the Enduro for a “monkey-bike”, left the riding jackets and safety gear behind. Threw out all the textbooks just to see if we could learn something new.

And we did. We learned that small bikes can also mean big adventures. The Skyteam Bongo 125 is so fun-sized it’s ….fun. Stress-free kind of fun. Bike stuck in the mud? Just lift it out. Can’t ride across the ocean? Just throw it on the boat. A 125cc too small to travel long distances? Just load it up on the back of the pickup truck. All the things we wouldn’t have managed with an Africa Twin. As much as the consensus is that big bikes can go further than smaller ones; there are places that they just can’t follow.

It’s more than that though. It’s about context. A fun-sized bike creates a different feel altogether. It prevents you from taking things too seriously and has a tendency of laughing in the face of all that is ‘proper’. It encourages you with its lack of expectations, to be a little silly without any shame involved. After all, you have to live a lil’ crazy to stay sane.